Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am proposing the idea of using fruit flys as a feed source. I have worm beds and a BSf pod that is full of fruit flys. I made a device that sucks them up into a jar which I dump in my FT. The fish all hang out on the side of the tank waiting for me to dump them in. What I am thinking of is to build a box on top of the worm bed that has small cone inlets the allow the flys in but not out. Then put the vacumn device in the box or a tube from the box to the FT that will suck up flys and dump them in the tank. The flys in the box will lay enough eggs to provide the next generation. I have a green house that my system is in currently and it there are probably a million fruit flys in it. Any ideas? Has anyone tried fruit flys before?

I'm msure the fish will eat them... but generally I'd try and discourage them...

The question is.... how do you plan to deter the fruit fly from attacking your vegetables/fruits... while still encouraging them to your "trap"....

The flys come to my trap anyway. Weather I want them or not. I am hoping that I can keep the ones that breed in the trap or fed to the fish and the new ones that show up will hopefully be attracted to the trap and not cause any trouble. I have heard that fruit flys aren't a problem for live and fresh fruit only rotting fruit.

... you must have a different fruit fly to us... over here they only feed on live fresh fruit... and make it go rotten...

the fly species we have here are only interested in rotting fruit. This is a good thing because we have tons of them.

Are you sure that they are a fruit fly and not a fermentation fly or similar? Most fruit fly will generally attack fruit as soon as it is ripe on the tree, they don't wait till it is rotten.

I think I haveDrosophila melanogaster flies. They are a fermentation fly I think.

so long as they're not the blasted silage flies! They bite hard!

I finished my Fruit fly house and even better it seems to work also. I have a much lower number of flys flying around inside my green house. The concept is a large pipe with a smaller longer pipe inside it. The smaller pipe has a fan blowing out of the house and over the FT. There is a gap around the smaller pipe where the air comes in. When the flys come to the odor of rotting fruit blowing out of the smaller pipe they get sucked into the gap and into the fly house. I think that I should have more distance between the end of the larger pipe and the smaller one so the incoming flys don't get sucked back out right away. The flys lay there eggs and some of them get blown out over the fish tank. The fan kills most of them when they pass through so not many get away. There are almost always flys coming out and gathered around the intake. My Blugills hang out in front of the fly house and gobble all the flys up.

Very cool setup machineman - very cool !